ology of the criminal group.)

[49] _Ibid._, pp. 443-46.

[50] Franz Oppenheimer, _The State_ (Indianapolis, 1914), p. 5.

[51] Thomas and Znaniecki, _op. cit._, III, 34-36.

[52] Original nature in its relation to social welfare and human
progress has been made the subject-matter of a special science,
eugenics. For a criticism of the claims of eugenics as a social science
see Leonard T. Hobhouse, _Social Evolution and Political Theory_
(Columbia University Press, 1917).

[53] Charles H. Cooley, _Social Organization_, p. 28.

[54] Thomas and Znaniecki, _op. cit._, III, 63-64.

CHAPTER II

HUMAN NATURE

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Human Interest in Human Nature

The human interest in human nature is proverbial. It is an original
tendency of man to be attentive to the behavior of other human beings.
Experience heightens this interest because of the dependence of the
individual upon other persons, not only for physical existence, but for
social life.

The literature of every people is to a large extent but the
crystallization of this persistent interest. Old saws and proverbs of
every people transmit from generation to generation shrewd
generalizations upon human behavior. In joke and in epigram, in
caricature and in burlesque, in farce and in comedy, men of all races
and times have enjoyed with keen relish the humor of the contrast
between the conventional and the natural motives in behavior. In Greek
mythology, individual traits of human nature are abstracted, idealized,
and personified into gods. The heroes of Norse sagas and Teutonic
legends are the gigantic symbols of primary emotions and sentiments.
Historical characters live in the social memory not alone because they
are identified with political, religious, or national movements but also
because they have come to typify human relationships. The loyalty of
Damon and Pythias, the grief of Rachel weeping for her children, the
cynical cruelty of the egocentric Nero, the perfidy of Benedict Arnold,
the comprehending sympathy of Abraham Lincoln, are proverbial, and as
such have become part of the common language of all the peoples who
participate in our occidental culture.

Poetry, drama, and the plastic arts are interesting and significant only
so far as they reveal in new and ever changing circumstances the
unchanging characteristics of a fundamental human nature. Illustrations
of this naive and unreflecting interest in the study of mankind are
fam